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Duffer Haus kicks in on Broadway

One of several new businesses, new sports bar features life-sized soccer-pool combination

Vincenza Licata, right, takes a shot at the life-sized soccer-pool game called gamböl at Duffer Haus April 4, as owner Brian Meadows watches. Licata handles marketing for the bar.

Ellis Arnold

A group of friends sets up to play a life-sized soccer-pool combination game April 4 at Duffer Haus, a new bar on South Broadway in Englewood’s downtown. The bar opened March 31.

Ellis Arnold

Right to left, owner Brian Meadows, marketer Vincenza Licata and her daughter, Valentina Licata, 8, at Duffer Haus on April 4. The bar is one of several new businesses in the Englewood downtown area.

A new business in the rapidly changing 3400 block of South Broadway — Englewood's historic downtown — offers just that: a life-sized pool-table surface where players kick soccer balls into pockets like in billiards.

Duffer Haus opened at 3470 S. Broadway on March 31, featuring local art and an atmosphere not of a typical sports bar. Owner Brian Meadows said the block, which has seen a recent influx of new businesses, seemed like “an up-and-coming area.”

“I think it has a newer vibe almost, where Denver was almost 10 years ago,” said Meadows, who lives in Thornton. The “potential in Englewood seems unlimited. It does still kinda have that old-school feel.”

Just days in, Meadows said locals as well as people from Highlands Ranch and even the Thornton area came in to check out the bar.

Meadows chose Englewood for his business partly because of the new apartments and businesses opening in that area of town.

“Local businesses have been extremely supportive,” said Meadows, whose bar will soon feature an electronic dartboard enabling patrons to play against someone “across the country,” and pinball and shuffleboard are more possibilities.

A food truck from Wholly Cannoli offering Italian food makes appearances out front, and foods like their pastries will eventually be offered in the bar, Meadows said.

The bar aims to add a kitchen in the back and start building it once it gets enough revenue, so Gaspare Licata, of Wholly Cannoli, can cook up more food.

“They're bringing something new to (the Denver area),” said Tori Seibert, 41, from Lakewood. She loved that the bar features the soccer-pool game.

Two other nearby businesses — Samadhi Yoga and Peace Cellar, which features plants, jewelry, clothes and more — held openings in March, said Carrie Moore, owner of Peace Cellar. Moore's business relocated from a few blocks north on South Broadway. Those sit on the 3400 block of that street.

More businesses that recently opened in the area include Aki Sushi at 3484 S. Broadway, The Tabletop Tap — a bar also offering board games and video games — at 3394 S. Broadway, and the bgood medical-marijuana dispensary at 11 W. Hampden Ave.

PokeCity Hawaiian restaurant has leased commercial space at the Broadway-Acoma Lofts near Englewood Parkway, and Evening Elegance, a women's accessories, shoe, lingerie and home-goods store, has announced plans to open at 3356 S. Broadway, according to a city newsletter.

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